~Alexandra Zărnescu: „When freedom of speech becomes dangerous!“

#The Denigration Goes On

We have lately grown accustomed to the increasing number of foreign citizens. Also known as „expats”, they have settled here for various reasons: some of them supposedly in the spirit of „development and interculturality“, in fact, would-be parvenus, as this is how our capitalist system works – i.e. in its initial, primeval state! – while others may settle here for personal entertainment, out of curiosity or driven by good intentions.

#Definition of Terms

According to The English Romanian dictionary the neologism „expat” comes from the English verb „to expatiate” that bears several meanings: „1. (upon) to spread (– with Gen.), to speak at length (on); to run rampant. 2. (rare) „to range about, to ramble, to walk about“(see The Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, The Institute of Linguistics, English Romanian Dictionary, the Printing House of the Academy of SRR, Bucharest, 1974, page 256).

It is worth noticing that – in terms of language sociology – the new, currently used term of. expat retains its trivalent and original connotation of the source verb: 1) it bears not only the second meaning which is rare, and restricted to topography and geography, relating to the wandering status of the individual and even worse, of errant, but also 2) comprises its first meaning, addressing the need of expats to socialize, i.e. to „speak at length“, to communicate directly, i.e. in the presence of others, face to face, and not through video cameras or on Internet; furthermore, 3) it also contains the specificity of expat groups, that of „to enlarge in discourse about everything“, even to “argue round and round the subject”, to “be off the track“. As illustrated below, some of them do actually ramble in History without no reason or embarrassment.

The term expat, as it is mainly used now to qualify an „errant“ individual – yet implicitly retaining the other two meanings above –, is more and more assimilated and used in Romanian due to the recent phenomenon of the expats’ apparition, i.e. foreigners residing (alone or along with their family) in a country, not emigrants however, but employees of private foreign companies or joint venture assigned temporarily in the host country. They are subsequently called back in their country and/or reassigned in another country if they prove easily adaptable.

I think that expats or errants are predecessors of the “modular family” anticipated by Alvin Toffler as early as 1970 in his famous book called The Shock of the Future!

As I have been myself an expat, and sometimes feeling more at ease in a cosmopolite environment than in my own, I insisted on sticking to the „custom “ and making friends among the local community of foreign citizens. I do like people, I am open-minded and communicative and meeting someone new seems to me like reading a new book. Traveling overseas in search of new adventures is quite costly, that is why getting into contact with foreigners here is a measure of compensation; every person is an „ambassador“ of his/her country and getting close to that person means getting acquainted to his/her culture and people, even if only indirectly. The larger a group of people you know, the smaller the world gets and you become aware that we are not fundamentally different intellectually and psychosocially after all.

In general, meetings with my checkered group of friends are always pleasant and relaxing experiences and people are kind, nice, open and friendly. But as it is in any larger community, you will get into contact with almost any type of personality and human behavior. Therefore, it may happen to meet a tiresome “black sheep” that ruins the atmosphere with her/his obnoxious attitude. There are also many individuals that find it impossible to get rid of their flaws of character: arrogance, self-sufficiency and, last but not least, their crass virulence, faults that seem to worsen when they go abroad, probably because of the totally unfounded superiority complexes in front of Romanians and “Easterners” in general.

It is futile expecting from most “Westerners” to be familiar with geography; to them the geopolitical concept of the socialist „Eastern Europe“ – abstract by definition and obsolete for almost two decades – represents a physical reality and a notion that has depreciatory meanings. They fail to realize that by classifying countries to the East of the former Iron Curtain in such manner, they are merely being offensive and proving themselves in a serious lack of culture, including political culture: if you look on the map, you find Romania in Central Europe and this country’s multimillenary history and culture cannot be compromised by the political influence post-WW2 and up to 1989 to the extent that someone may argue that, after we unwillingly “relocated” more to the East (over the Ukrainians, the Finnish, Russians or where exactly?!), we would be of an “Eastern culture” parallel to Western culture, or even inferior to it. For such Westerners, more privileged from the geopolitical point of view, that did not stand “in the path of all evils“ – as Grigore Ureche would lament –, we are not Westerners as well – people of white race and Christian belief (the authentic Orthodox faith even!), but a peripheral ragtag of uncertain origin located somewhere “in the East” on the verge of falling off into Asia!

Martin Van Buren, the eight American President, wrote history with an anecdote inspired from his ambiguity and subtlety of speech for which he often became the target for irony; his addressing style so uncertain, almost misleading and “shifty” – as we would call it today – was known as vanburenish in the slang of his times. It is said that when he was asked by someone „Where does the sun rise, in the West or in the East? “, he replied: „My dear, West and East are two completely relative notions“. I believe that we, “the Easterners”, are best qualified to judge and confirm that he was perfectly right. I do not know if this argument may be acceptable to a Westerner especially when I doubt that many of them know who Martin Van Buren was and may even mistake him for a Hollywood star like Vin Diesel or Van Damme.

#A New Symbiosis of Denigration: Gypsies + Bloggers

Until recently, the main worldwide denigrators of Romania were the Hungarians backed up by various British groups for whatever reasons. A new symbiosis occurred lately, that between gypsies and bloggers. And this happened as numerous Romanian citizens – the vast majority gypsies – managed to attract the distaste of the world to a level comparable to the aversion toward Irish and Italian immigrants, toward the Jewish Diaspora, toward Arabs since September 11th 2001 and more recently toward Americans due to the actions of the Bush Junior Administration. It is thus understandable – yet not acceptable! – the way anti-Romanian propaganda skewed many opinions regarding the Romanian people and Romania itself and the phenomenon is like a snowball still rolling onwards and threatening to become an avalanche. The existence of such denigration is confirmed by an expat, Günter W. Dill, who states honestly: „(…) I started searching for the reasons why this country is crushed below a curtain of prejudice, as heavy as lead, that one finds so hard to describe“.

It becomes utterly grave when hateful opinions of Romania coming from individuals who have the clear intent of manipulating the non-informed and of bending reality are publicly expressed without a shame, causing prejudice to our national dignity. Leif Pettersen is such a slimeball and a human piece of garbage who insults Romanian citizens in the well-known travel guide called Lonely Planet, in which he portrays himself (!) as the sole authority in the matter („the most complete online travel information source“), as well as on his personal blog, while roaring his inner rage motivated by his abused childhood and his abjections originating from his Freudian complexes and American ghetto upbringing. We are mocked by both means of propaganda simply because we are citizens of the “second poorest European country” (speaking of which, what country is nowadays the poorest in Europe: Moldavia, Ireland, Greece, Ukraine or Bulgaria?). And ironically, on June 1st 2008, this guy was praised on Antena 3 TV channel for the way he „advertises us“ in his guide!

There are however some intelligent detractors using more persuasive methods to convince the public opinion. I have examined such a case in my article „Scott Schonauer Denigrates Romania in Stars and Stripes“, published in Justiţiarul magazine (no. 13/138 from December 19th, 2007, pages 8-11), as well as on line, on AlterMedia and in Epoca Magazine.

The “Schonauer” case represents a drop in the ocean of insults and figments combined with true aspects regarding the actions of members of the gipsy minority, facts that have been reported with unction, on kilometers of paper in the international press. Even if the gypsies pertain to a minority, they managed to compromise us in majority especially by substituting themselves to us, with the use of the linguistic concoction “rrom/rom”. The mass media in the U.K., France and Germany have a long history in denigrating Romania even before 1989, when borders were closed and the gypsies coming from Romania were not yet aware of their ability to become “ambassadors” of the Romanian people in our detriment. Such instances are hard to control as they are engineered by occult groups with economic and political interests in Romania and form part of a larger project. What is convincing in this choir of denigrators is the summary drawn out by the editors. More so, lately Romanian mass media stated that foreign press (British, French, Portuguese and Swiss) portrayed Romania as the country of the gypsies in the Euro 2008 football championship spot. I think these people did it deliberately as Western press argued at length after the scandal provoked by the gypsy individual Mailat– especially in Italy! – on gypsies not being Romanians, even if some of them came from Romania, a difference the foreign newspapers should have held into account!

Unfortunately, a great share of guilt in denigrating Romania belongs to many of our own journalists and politicians. Such an instance to be blamed is the Sinteza zilei show broadcasted on June 5th, 2008 on Antena 3 when Mihai Gâdea and his guests constantly called gypsies as “rrom/rom”, and not “gypsy” as they should have, while commenting upon the Euro 2008 spot figuring big-bellied gypsies with grotesquely large gold chains and crosses around their necks! It is clear that if the mass media officials continue to use these terms, Western individuals have all excuses to call us gypsies in the future! I mean, Mădălin Voicu, of gypsy origin, has the guts and political and civil honestly to always call them “gypsies” and Romanians like Mihai Gâdea and his companions of one mind are afraid to say the word “gypsy” and prefer calling them „rrom/rom“ instead even if they claim to be professional and so ruffle!

Should we be surprised that the West treats us as gypsies since most our politicians and mass media officials (see for example the summary of this article) have no moral honesty and civic courage to assume being Romanian and operate the required distinction between Romanian and gypsy – especially when we find ourselves in the position of being splattered all over the world because of the gypsies and the enforcement by ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Petre Roman – through Memorandum D2/1094 from February 29th, 2000 – regarding the term „rrom/rom“?!

With respect to Romanian diplomats, they do not call the detractors of Romania to account, as had done Nicolae Titulescu, the greatest diplomat in the world during the inter-war period, as they are too busy entertaining themselves and stuffing their own wallets! The irony is that, although Virgin Media withdrew the denigrating spot on June 6th this year and also sent apologies to the Romanian Embassy in London – a singular instance of the kind! – a Portuguese magazine portrayed the Romanian football team on June 7th this year as „The Gypsies of the East“. In spite of that, our „journalists“ will not cast out on their own the misleading term of „rrom/rom“ unless forced by a statutory directive of the Government of Parliament as happened with the Memorandum no. H03/169 from January 31st, 1995, issued by the Minister of Foreign Affairs!

The purpose of this hostile propaganda is to get the Romanian nation under shock to determine us to completely lose our dignity and self-confidence and to induce the feeling that we are nothing but pariahs that have been accepted in the community of „civilized“ countries way too early, as the German daily newspaper Die Welt argued recently on behalf of „the enlightened minds“ in Bruxelles. These are the same Bruxelles commissioners that one year before Romania’s accession to EU were singing praises to us for the progress made, up to declaring the Romanian economy as “functional” – an instance of their political schizophrenia and trickery. The economy is not even now functional precisely because of our own governors and the so-called „strategic investors“ that are nothing but foreign „mites“ in collusion with local „mites“. To those who wish to know the hidden truth about the E.U. I recommend reading the book written by Christopher Booker and Richard North,EUROPEAN UNION or THE GREAT DECEPTION. A SECRET HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, 2004.

The ultimate goal is to put us on our knees in front of international corporations, to invade and plunder us and transform Romania into a slave plantation for corporate entities which will treat us as such: they will pay us a quarter of the actual wages, if they are “generous” that is, and humiliate us openly as colonial mentality has not changed since the discovery and subjugation of the “New World”.

I hope that the many credulous individuals still believing that foreign investors are God’s gifts on Earth will come to their senses before things get worse and we are no longer able to recover. We are already witnessing their financial plunder through the invasion of foreign banks: more than 50 percent of the active population contracted loans from these loan sharks! There are more and more foreign individuals considering Romania as „the Promised Land“ where business and development opportunities (mainly of their own pockets) are abundant. Their utter audacity is that once settled in our country they start making a wry face, addressing critics on everything they see and mocking us all, despite the permanent and exaggerated tolerance that the Romanian nation has always proven – and still does, unfortunately! In most cases they do it “just for the sport of it”, not because they have reasons; with so much tolerance on our part we risk transforming Romania into a “sporting house” (brothel)!

#Proliferation of Romania’s Denigration by Bloggers

Along with the flourishing news meant to shock the international public by conveying Romanians as a mob of gypsies, law-breakers, prostitutes, beggars and other elements that shouldn’t belong in the civilized world, several „Frankenstein’s monsters” showed up as products of the manipulation process which I pointed out and which induced further prejudice in the minds of many. These brain-washed „jumbos” do nothing more than perpetuate the patterns and clichés already built against Romanians when they tell their “innocent” outlandish adventures in „Rromanistan“ (Ţiganistan/Gypsyland) – as they started to call Romania in mockery!

Such an example is the blog of Shelly Roberts, an American citizen that arrogated the authority in the matter and wishes to introduce and describe our way of living to uninitiated Americans (Romania for rookies). This initiative might be welcomed at first glance, but when you start reading the bunch of lies and stupidity reeled with the pomposity of the arrogant Westerner considering herself of an objective and competitive opinion in all aspects and even imagining that she has a mission in this world – probably a remnant of the post-war expectancy „The Americans are coming!“ – but who actually abuses the freedom of speech for which her predecessors sacrificed their lives, when you read all this – as I was saying –, you feel like acting in an equally Western manner and calling your lawyer.

I have here a paragraph – described below with all original misspellings – whereby the city of Iasi is described as a no man’s land that across centuries would have been a cattle run for all people aspiring to the title of colonial power:

”I’m going to skip the history lesson. Well, as much as possible. Iasi, like a lot of Romania seemed to be on the road to everywhere. So all the 13th, 14th and 15th+++ centurians, passing through looked around, said, “Hmmm, nice place to raise us some sheeps (sic) I think I’ll take it over.” and came, saw and concurred („concurred“, instead of „conquered“; it’s English, isn’t it! Or maybe so much literary talent is painful and she wants to kill us in twisters she understands only?!). Not just in Iasi, all over Romania. Turks, Saxons, Austro-Hungarians, Aryans, Capitalists, later and most recently the Russians, Multi-nationals, and of course, originally, the Romans from whence Roman-ia, the country with an italianate language that they claim is easy to understand if you speak Italian (NOT!) A language that could use 3 i’s just to call the bunch of kids copiii. (ko-pee-ee) the i of which you pronounce two out of three times, your choice. Cool, huh!”

She may be an English graduate, but she’s not a Master of Arts; I tell you, she is a Master of Art-less!

This gook that found shelter on our lands like any other typical ragamuffin and low-life from the West, i.e. for “business” opportunities (in Romanian as she states: Eu sunt aici pentru bani ;-} / I am here for the money ;-}), thinks herself entitled to rewrite our history according to her own hallucinations and complete senselessness, as well as an unforgivable lack of consciousness.

What is interesting is the way we have been invaded by all those peoples without us even knowing. Thank God there were some Arians among them; otherwise we would all have looked like her: a bunch of unidentifiable and slightly gippy mongrels impossible to describe racially. It is worth noting the ambiguous style of writing enabling the unknowing to understand whatever they want; you can not figure out exactly when and who conquered what.

I don’t know which documents our would-be “historian” rummaged trough and who lied to her that the city of Iasi had been the ping-pong ball of everyone she listed, from which only the British, Genghis Khan, the Jedi Knights and the Klingons were missing; it is sure however that no one pulled her ears for her phantasmagoria although the blog seems to be 60% accessed by Romanians. I tried to bring her back to reality with the comments below:

“Dear Friend and Wanderer,

Please don’t make a virtue out of ignorance! The fact that you know nothing, but nothing at all, about the history of Iasi (not “yash”!), Romania, Europe and in general nothing about the history of languages, planets, the Universe etc. -, does not make you entitled to publicly reel off your assumptions regarding everything and everybody: the Saxons (the Sachen and the Swab in the correct version) have NEVER been to Iasi, they settled only in Sibiu and Brasov. The same with the Austro-Hungarians; Sobieski the king of Poland invaded Iasi one time, stole its archives and set Iasi on fire, but he was severely battered by Moldavians; the Russians were represented only by Peter the Great and the Soviet Army for very short periods of time; the Turks have been severely pounded every time they attempted to threaten the integrity of the territory of Moldavia and Muntenia and so on and so forth.
The history of Iasi is attested by documents for over 6 centuries. If you return there, the historians of the city will bang your head against the six volumes written about the first four centuries and attested by those documents.

The United States have a history of only two and a half centuries. A Frenchman, I believe it was Patrick Girard, said that the dust on the streets of America is mixed with the dust of the bones of the Native Americans who have been exterminated by American colonists. Therefore, before you talk about the sheep in Iasi, you’d better support the development of the Native American reservations. You should also watch Michael Moore’s documentaries and Jon Stewart’s talk shows among other things. And if you have any civic courage, please read ON THE BRINK: AN INSIDER’S ACCOUNT OF HOW THE WHITE HOUSE COMPROMISED AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE by Elaine Monaghan and Tyler Drumheller.
I expect you to fill in your immense cultural gaps in the future, in order to be on equal terms with me, or others in a conversation.“

She did not post my reply on the blog; however, she snapped at me in a personal email and replied with a superior and injured attitude, striving to tick me off and flop into my face the typical slogan „I am an American citizen and I have the right to express myself freely“.

This also applies to the Romanian citizens who won their freedom of speech in 1989 through the sacrifice of thousands, similar to what the first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees to Americans. It seems nonetheless that “lady” Roberts refuses to grant me this right for I am not American. Not to mention she does that in my country! To my deep regret, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has no correspondent in the Romanian Constitution for emergency cases like this. She would have definitely not been able to infringe that one as well, that is for sure!

Certainly, she did not resist insinuating with subtlety the stereotype of “the Romanian being a shepherd and nothing more”. I do wonder, if this is the history she drivels, where were the Moldavians and why hadn’t they fought with the bravery witnessed by the true history in order to defend their invaded lands?! She was probably short of inspiration; otherwise she would have written that at that time Moldavians were in Spain “to harvest strawberries”…

She asserts to be well informed; if this is so, why did she forget to mention that the city of Iasi is called the “students’ city” as the majority of the population is made up of students, that the city accommodates the first University built in Romania and that the Faculty of Computer Science gave the greatest number of IT specialists to Microsoft, which prompted the far more modest Bill Gates to send a filmed thank-message to the I.T. Department for having trained so many and so brilliant minds?!

Her neurotic remarks of absolute disdain are full of alleged subtle irony delivered in the tipically lymphatic and sarcastic style of American humour giving you the feeling that she is forced to resign in front of the supernatural events she is facing in this society – quite dubious and suspicious in the eyes of a poor old American forced by destiny to bear such experience on the verge of paranormal (or maybe abnormal) where even the oven represents a great unknown (it being an Eastern European oven expressing temperature in Celsius degrees! What a nerve – the oven’s I mean, not hers, Shelly Roberts!).

Romania seems to her a sort of apparition worth rubbernecking in « bon ton », a strange exotic world raising suspicion wherever you go, it is the Wild East (what a cliché! As well as I remember, we invented the pun!) where an “it-alienated” language is spoken abusing the vowel and letter “i” that, God knows, she spares no effort in learning, yet after so much time she succeeds nothing more than expressing herself like Benjy, the mentally alienated character in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. She is not to be blamed for her incapacity and lack of linguistic talent; it is the fault of Romanians who prevent her from improving her Romanian skills as they intend to improve their English, and so they speak to her in her own language! What can we do, we are a capable, teachable, intelligent, tolerant and polyglot nation. As proof, most of us are able to express ourselves intelligibly in at least one foreign language as compared to the French, Italians, Spanish, Austrians and others that warn you „kindly“: „this is my country, so speak my language!“ That is yet another reason to gape at and complain of this unfamiliar territory, where people have not yet “gotten rid of communist manners, such as holding military parades on the National Day“. Speaking of military parades, I wonder what determines the French or the Indians, for example, to express themselves the same way on their national day, despite never having experienced communism at all?! Maybe they intend to copy us?!

#When Freedom of Speech is Dangerous!

One of the few delights of the cripple Shelly Roberts is to meet other fellow countrymen since she does not have to translate or explain the joke. Considering that the joke is so often addressing the fantastical Romanian universe, she is co-opting other bored-of-life individuals in her gratuitous irony on our account perpetuating the clichés and patronizing attitude. To me, it seems far more grave that, among the many spoiled foreigners to gossip with, she has found several Romanians, probably the kind of self-hating Romanians so ashamed of their origin that they speak with a dubious accent to show off that they have “been around” so much that they forgot to speak their native language. These are the ones mocking Romania even worse, as genuine traitors would do in order to feel accepted among “the popular”.

She has another website besides this whining blog where, along with her awards and professional history, Grumpy-Shelly posts shots taken in Romania and elsewhere: http://www.shellyroberts.com/nw-photogallery-more.html. The photo album for Romania opens with a picture of a green-eyed gypsy boy intended for a cheap copy of the famous „Afghan girl“. It is actually a „filthy imitation“, as our President Traian Băsescu would say. Since we are so „multicultural“, she could have at least posted the picture of a more “Arian” Saxon! After all, we are in Europe, not in India. When you first access this link, the pictures she deems as representative for Romania are shocking and revolting: gypsies, beggars, a chained bear, garbage men, miserable buildings and a few clear shinny faces, probably of foreigners, emanating self-esteem and wealth – maybe our “new conquerors”. It seems that even the Mexican festival Cinco de Mayo is portrayed with more respect and objectivity.

Out of many things promoted on the site, Shelly Roberts claims to have some experience as Creative Director in the Advertising Department of many companies. It is well known that advertising is a mass manipulation method. Fortunately, advertising breaks during TV broadcast are rather used as „potty breaks“ (i.e. going to WC). Being probably aware of the fact that few have any consideration for her work, she casts out her frustration on the blog by manipulating the opinion of the rookies regarding Romania, at the moment her personal gravy train, or – like Romanians say – her personal milking cow (I have solid evidence that she is fascinated by Romanian cows!).

Being so prejudiced against the Romanian people who are of a morbid hypocrisy transpiring in their excessive politeness – as she thinks –, I suppose she was not prepared for a reaction like mine, which she probably considered as a sincere impoliteness.

Other friends and acquaintances on the foreign community have no reason to be affected by my demonstration. Shelly Roberts may well be subject to Murphy’s Law: „The one crying out the loudest is the one who protrudes“, as her utterly despising attitude is not applicable to most expats, who are in general common-sensed, detached and tolerant, preferring to maintain a rather diplomatic attitude on things that seem strange to them, things that we, the locals may consider out of line as well.

I have no intention of being contentious; we should all appreciate that she described the gypsy phenomenon in another section of her blog, explaining it in order for the uninformed people interested in the Romanian way of life to better understand. As a proud graduate of a famous University, she collected information on the origin of this minority trying to explain the repulsion Romanians have towards them and their reprehensible actions and our conviction that “gypsies are not Romanian“ (They ain’t from around here). It is worth noticing that she elaborated on the subject even if initially she was insecure of the assertions made by the successors of Dacians (more or less half-blooded as you may have noticed from her inept opinion); trying to prove she is not as superficial as it seems, she compiled from the Internet!

This site (http://www.eliznik.org.uk/RomaniaHistory/minority-gypsies.htm) wants to be a miniature image of the famous Wikipedia. Few people are aware that these kinds of websites like Wikipedia and the one above are not authorities in education; these are ordinary websites funded by “benevolent” financiers where anyone can post information and where the retrenching filter is marked volens nolens by the subjectivity of site administrators (see examples 1, 2, 3, 4).

What would happen if someone took the stupid writs on her personal blog for granted and posted them on false virtual encyclopaedia of such notoriety?! In the age of speed where time seems to compress and no one affords the luxury to take a thorough examination of competent sources as libraries prefering instead to click around on the Internet and receive information instantaneously, we voluntarily subject ourselves to manipulation because of our superficial way of treating things and because the last two or three generations have been trained in seeing mass media as the “fourth power” of the consumption (modern!) society! – as a reflex of what sociologists called in relation to journalism „the letter fetishism“ (i.e. the final argument: „It is written in the newspapers!“), currently extended to the audio and visual means that are more effective in manipulation as they have a greater impact! Unfortunately, mass media is the most effective manipulation tool.

It is redundant stating that the website in question, under British aegis, uses the “recipe of misinformation mixing 70 percent forged data and 30 percent true information“ à la Scott Schonauer and others, thus certifying Westerners’ “fascination” towards gypsies in Romania. It is also unnecessary pointing out that the link for Romanian music unveils a picture of gypsy musicians as supposedly representing Romanian musical traditions.

The re-forging of Romania’s history is already in progress as we revert to the poisonous „Roller age“ proved by the so-called “alternative” manuals which represent one of the numerous examples of the anti-Romanian game plan! If we let ourselves intoxicated and overwhelmed, we will soon have several generations of “robots” lacking true knowledge and the feeling of belonging to a nation with a great multimillenary past, generations blazed by the complex of a dishonoured, emasculated and humiliated nation, while “quarter-learned”, being themselves manipulated, such as this malignant Shelly Roberts may be accepted as pedagogical authorities for the simple fact that they discharge their stupidity on the Internet. The phenomenon has been witnessed even before “Miss” Roberts et ejusdem farinae started swarming in the local fauna.

I can tell you from experience that the insufficient adaptation to the environment in a foreign country may induce a total dislike to all that surrounds you and even the sky seems to be less blue than at home. In such circumstances, the only way to settle things is to pack your bags and return to your country, which advice applies to this Shelly Roberts and others alike. And to put more weight on my advice, let me paraphrase a quotation from Henri Miller’s Black Spring in this way: Romania is the grandest country God ever made and if you don’t like this country you can get the hell out of it and go back where you came from. I hope that if she did not take me into consideration because I am Romanian, then maybe she will take Henry Miller, the great American writer into account, as he may be considered a predecessor of expats since he lived most of his live in a self-imposed exile in Europe due to the repudiation, negation, blame and censorship imposed by the American society and manifested for many decades even after his passing.

Tired of the deliberate or infantile malice of gooks like her that took their status of Romania’s parasites seriously – as if we don’t have so many of our own already! – I am asking the authorities to take a position on this free – rather anarchical – expression of such contempt for Romanians, which brings deep prejudice to both us and our predecessors’ honour, who never let themselves enslaved. The sociological reality is that progress and regress are inherent to all nations depending on the historical and geopolitical context of the era, fact that these cheap detractors fail to understand due to their distorted perception, and their feeling that they live in a continuous present, akin to those of madmen and animals – yet I have doubts on the latter! Such periods of time, whether longer or shorter, are a result of universal laws represented as a harmonic curve in terms of development. Remember for example the “Corsi e ricorsi”theoryof Giambattista Vico, the “Universal Undulation” theory of Vasile Conta and many modern ones like the light quantum theory.

Romanians, the most ancient people of Europe, are not fundamentally characterized by the actual decline. That is why analyzing and commenting on Romania while witnessing the most serious threshold of its existence – which is mostly caused by the West! – in such a caustic, inaccurate and subjective way is similar to laughing at a falling disabled instead of lending him a hand and helping him stand up! Therefore, I appeal to the historians of Iasi, the public figures in the Ministry of Culture and Cults, the officials of other assigned ministries and institutions, as well as all back-boned Romanians tired of abjections perpetrated on our account by all these pygmies and ask them:

#Restrain the free expression of stupidity and offences!

Impose the censorship of common-sense, strengthen it with the censorship of state bodies and help reinforce the national dignity!

Urge the Parliament to approve the draft law of senators Gheorghe Funar and Adrian Păunescu that forbids the use of the infamous distinction „rrom/rom“ and promotes the historic and scientific expression of „gypsy“!

The author’s note. The article in Romanian can be found here: 1, 2, 3. The article in English was previously posted here.

Mihai Eminescu: „The Dacian’s Prayer“

When death did not exist, not yet eternity,
Before the seed of life had first set living free,
When yesterday was nothing, and time had not begun,
And one included all things, and all was less than one,
When sun and moon and sky, the stars, the spinning earth
Were still part of the things that had not come to birth,
And You quite lonely stood... I ask myself with awe,
Who is this mighty God we bow ourselves before.

Ere yet Gods existed already He was God
And out of endless water with fire the lightning shed;
He gave the Gods their reason, and joy to earth did bring,
He brought to man forgiveness, and set salvation's spring.
Lift up your hearts in worship, a song of praise enfreeing,
He is the death of dying, the primal birth of being. >>>>>